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A catch-all term used for anime, manga and other cartoon and comic characters with bizarre, improbable, or just plain goofy-looking hairstyles.

Usually, the most important characters of the story will have wild spikes or a cool-looking hairdo in order to standout among the crowd. It also helps to create a distinctive silhouette that will stand out in branding, media, and merchandise. It may be one or more different colors that don't appear naturally in real humans (blue is a popular choice). Sometimes the hair appears semi-transparent, with the character's eyes visible through it, although this presumably represents hair fine enough that it isn't completely obscuring, rather than anything outré.
Anime Hair is very common among protagonists of anime/manga for the Shōnen (Demographic), although the trend seems to be headed to more plausible styles: compare Son Goku's hair to Ichigo's.

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Hammerspace Hair—a character pulls out something they were storing in their hair

Helicopter Hair—hair that works as a propeller, lifting the character into the air

Hime Cut—hair that is styled into three parts (straight bangs, sidelocks, and long hair in the back) that is meant to show that a (most likely Japanese or Japanese descent) girl as proper, upper-class and/or traditional.

Compare also '80s Hair, one of Real Life's best counterparts, and a major influence on this trope.

Examples

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Implausibly, Garnier started marketing a hair-styling range called "manga hair" around 2005 or so, complete with commercials full of bounding Goku-coiffured gents and ladies. Inconceivable! It does deliver nigh-on-indestructible results and is practically water-proof. Said spikes have caused injuries to huggers.

Anime and Manga

In the world of crazy hair, there is nothing that comes close to Yu-Gi-Oh! It would be easier to list the characters in the series who don't have anime hair, but that sure as hell won't stop us from trying.

Yugi Muto (pictured above) is an absurd example, as he has two sets of colored spikes. One is yellow, with a much larger red-tipped black layer on top of it. This gets even weirder in a flashback showing the Pharaoh as a baby, which seems to imply that those actually are his natural hair colour(s), passing through a reincarnation.

Yami Yugi/Pharaoh Atem's hair manages to get even crazier, since it has bangs sticking up. Oddly enough, the Egyptian arc shows that his father had completely normal hair, while the Pharaoh's vizier, Siamun Muran, had hair like Grandpa's (Grandpa is likely his reincarnation), possibly suggesting a familial relationship between them as there is between Yugi and Grandpa in the present day.

The dub has a moment in the Virtual World filler arc where a villain hoping to defeat and possess Yugi talks about how he'll be happy to walk free in a younger body, but he'll have to shave his (Yugi's) head first. This is the only mention anywhere of that hair, and it wasn't in the original.

His grandfather also has basically the same haircut, only gray and with a hat. When he was younger, it had the same coloration as Yugi's, with a brownish beard that didn't match anything else.

Yugi's friends have weird hair, too. Otogi/Duke has standard black spikes, but Honda/Tristan's hair is a giant brown horn. Anzu/Tea and Jounochi/Joey both have very poofy hair that sticks out at least several inches from their head.

Maximilian Pegasus, who is in his mid-20s, has silver hair that looks like some sort of corrugated sheet metal. And apparently, it's been like that since he was 12.

Villains Bakura, Dartz, and Dark Marik all have very spiky pale hair that would put Cloud to shame. Bakura's evil form's hair resembles a cloud of white to light blue bat wings. Siegfried and Leon have magenta/pink hair that becomes brighter as they age. Kimo, Pegasus's henchman from the Duelist Kingdom arc, has a hairstyle like Tristan's, except it points straight upward.

Every time we see a younger version or past life of a character, their hair is exactly the same, except possibly shorter. The only exception is Ishizu, who has loose hair as an adult and braids in a flashback. Hair seems to reincarnate with them. This even extends to Kisara, who "reincarnated" as the Blue Eyes White Dragon.

The Yugioh Hair legacy lives on initsseveralsuccessorseries and their movie together. Generally, the show's protagonist will have the most conspicuous hair. Judai/Jaden is the only notable aversion, with fairly ordinary two-tone brown. Best examples include:

Almost every single character in Zexal has at least two hair colours: Shark has a purple and light blue octopus hairdo, and Kaito/Kite has a blonde and green, vaguely droplet-shaped style that has the fandom still debating over whether it looks more like an onion, a strawberry, a flower bud, or one of another hundred or so things.

Yuya Sakaki has fairly normal hair in comparison... that is to say, bright red with dark green bangs. In his case, the fandom has unanimously given him the nickname of "tomato."

Things get even weirder when various alternate-universe counterparts get introduced, all of whom have different varieties of Anime Hair. The fandom has described them, in order of appearance, as Eggplant, Blueberry-Banana, and Purple Cabbage. Though oddly enough, even with their highly distinctive hairstyles◊ the rest of the cast still acts like they're practically identical to each other, suggesting the wild hairdos the franchise is infamous for might not actually be visible in-universe. That or they're way too used to everyone looking crazy.

Yusaku Fujiki has dark blue hair with light blue bangs and pink accents. His hair has been compared to that of a wisteria tree◊, also accounting for the meaning of each individual kanji which make up his surname. Clever.

From Cardfight!! Vanguard G we have Shindou Chrono, who, in the middle of his bright red spiky hair, also has a random pink swirl in the middle of it.

Being created in the late 80s, Ghost in the Shell's Togusa, a man from the 2030s, is doomed to be haunted by his spectacular mullet throughout all adaptations of the manga.

In Digimon Adventure, we had Tai and Matt's big and spiky hairs. Amusingly in the dub, their hair is often made fun of both by the other digidestnied and each other. (The original never made fun on their ridiculous hairstyles.)

Not only that, but Vegeta explains in Dragon Ball Z that pure Saiyans retain the exact same hairstyle outside of powered-up states throughout their lives unless cut, and even then, it'll grow back to the same way it was before provided it wasn't cut too much. The only one with any difference we know of is Vegeta, who had bangs as a child but otherwise always had hair that seems to stand straight up.

At least that justifies the pure-blooded Saiyans' hair styles. Goten, on the other hand, has the same hair as his father even though it was established in the precious arc that half-saiyans' hair does change. That means Chi-Chi has been cutting his hair like that since he was a baby. GT has him specifically avert it with a few different hairstyles, some of which still fall here.

Gets a nod in the movie when Goku tries to slick back his hair for a party—only for it to spring back up. Bulma only has a few blue streaks in her hair, though.

It's not even limited to the Saiyan characters, either. Yamcha, for example, has hair so unruly that he probably breaks hairbrushes just trying to keep it in order, at least until he cuts it shorter post-Freiza. Android 16 sports a ludicrous orange mohawk. Bulma's neon blue hair is normal in style (usually), but is also apparently its natural color, as her son inherits it. And no less than two human martial artists from early Dragon Ball sport huge poofy afros.

The title character of Yotsuba&! has green hair in four little pigtails that stick out at angles around her head. They indicate a four-leaf clover, as that is also the meaning of her name.

And then, Boris Tepes Dracula slices off both of the half-pompadours, leading to Ryu passing out. And THEN Ryu gets back up and randomly regrows the whole dang pomp to its original "Ultra Pompadour" form just before he kicks Boris' batty butt.

And in case you haven't noticed from the images, it's a heart-shaped pompadour.

Pretty much everyone in Tenchi Muyo!, although Tenchi and Seina themselves are a little reasonable in the spikiness level. Washu, on the other hand, has the part around her face deliberately styled to look like a crab, and then you get to the ponytail...

Most of the female Mai Hi ME cast has relatively normal hair styles, although in a small rainbow of colors (including Natsuki, whose hair is blue). There are three major exceptions, though:

The title character of Hikaru no Go is a borderline case. Anyone with black hair and a bottle of peroxide can have blond bangs, but this qualifies due to the sheer length of time he keeps it, aging from 11 to 16 with the two-tone hair.

Aside from his huge blond afro, Bobobo has what looks like a long, thin moustache... that's actually two of his nosehairs. WTF?

Bobobo's former friend and rival, Gunkan, has a massive pomp that sticks several feet away from his head (to say nothing about his blonde beard).

Bobobo's older brother, Bibibi-bi Bi-bibi, has a head of hair that looks like someone made a lion's mane out of needles. It helps that he's a master of Fist of the Head Hair, the strongest of five hair-based Shinken.

And then you get to Vento Aureo. There's Giorno, who has three distinctive curls at the front of his head (which many fans joke look like donuts) and a braided ponytail in the back. It's worth noting that he was born with relatively normal-looking black hair◊, but after his Stand awakened his hair turned blond and became the style it is now. Also from this Part are Abbacchio, whose long silver hair ends with gravity-defying spikes, Sale, whose hair resembles a giant, orange spider, Trish◊, whose hair is styled in a spiral and ends with spikes that curl upward, Formaggio◊, whose buzzcut looks more like skin he's wearing on his head, Pesci, whose hair can be easily compared to leaves of a pineapple, Squalo, whose hair is tied up into six or seven pigtails that hang on the top of his head, and Cioccolata, whose green hair resembles that of a jester hat, fitting his Monster Clown appearance.

From Steel Ball Run, there's Stephen Steel, who, similar to F.F., has hair that looks more like an eggshell, Oyecomova, who seems to have thick curls of hair jutting out of his hat, Funny Valentine, who, no matter which version from whichever universe, always has the same hair, which looks like a chandelier landed on his head, The Eleven Riders, all of which have hair that resemble newspaper clippings, and Wekapipo, whose hair looks like a grid.

Bonus points: no matter where Astro's head is pointing, the spikes stay perfectly still.note Mickey Mouse's ears do the exact same thing. This could just be a stylistic choice to retain the silhouette under all circumstances, but considering Tezuka was inspired by Disney's animation...

One Piece has the Baroque Works villain, Mr. 3. His hair is a crazy topknot shaped like a big "3". And it's almost always ON FIRE.

There is also Baroque Works' Miss Doublefinger, who could turn her giant curly blue afro (along with the rest of her body) into sharp spikes, professor Clover from the island of Ohara, Robin's place of birth and his clover leaf styled hair and it may be argued that Crocus' Crocus flower head ornaments, former crewmate to Gold Roger and acting doctor to the great whale Laboon, might in fact be a colorful crop of hair. At any rate, One Piece is full to the brim with outrageously fun character styles, and has a plethora of hairstyles.

Don't forget Usagi Tsukino in Sailor Moon. Those twin ponytails that reach to her ankles are first tied into the large knots we see on top of her head before they dangle that far down. Apparently, she's never heard of a haircut...

The Amazons Quartet; It's hard to find a hairstyle weirder or more impossible to reproduce than Jun­Jun's. (She's the one in green, in case you were wondering.)

Chibi Usa and Chibi Chibi take the odango to a next level with pointed and heart shaped buns in pink and red respectively. Even better, Chibi Usa's hair is naturally pink, even though her mom is blonde and her dad's hair is black.

As a shounen series, ridiculous and improbably hairstyles often pop up in Bleach:

Kenpachi invokes this and purposely styles his hair this way, although it's still jarring how it could actually stay like that (Apparently it takes hours of effort to do). His hair is pulled into giant spikes with little jingle bells at the end (the jingle bells are so he doesn't accidentally take his enemies by surprise). According to a databook, he washes his hair with soap to make it easier to spike it up (the one time he tried out proper shampoo/conditioner it was too silky). When left alone, his hair hangs down in a rather normal, if wild, way — this is what he ends up doing after the time skip. The bells are also the source of some jokes, such as one omake where he takes a long time to get ready because his arm wasn't tall enough to attach the bell to his highest spike. Being such a badass, he obviously can't ask any of his subordinates for help.

Similar to Kenpachi, Renji's initial hairstyle has his ponytail spiking up to improbably levels (it's more tame after the time skip).

Rukia and Ururu are milder examples, as their hair don't seem very outlandish but there is always a strand of it over their faces, even during battle scenes. Bonus points for Ururu's case, whose strand for some reason is always divided in an upside-down "Y" shape, framing her eyes and nose. When Rukia was dangled upside down by Gunjo in the fourth movie, that strand of hair of hers didn't even move an inch. Hell, her hair, apart from the tufts of it at her shoulders, weren't moving at all.

Eve of Black Cat and her expy counterpart Golden Darkness of To Love-Ru certainly qualify, given their ability to turn their hair into fists, blades, or virtually any other item the situation calls for.

Jessie's very long red hair in the shape of a drop or comma... and it is always looking the same, whatever the angle of view. And the hairdo also seems perfectly rigid—she once slapped both James and Meowth with the tail of her hair. One episode has her put it in a messy ponytail but when she trips it instantly poofs into her normal style, complete with a sound effect.

Lots of characters in the Poke-verse have oddly-colored, gravity-defying, or just plain wacky hairstyles. It's far more common to see a character with an improbable (or downright impossible) hairstyle than a realistic one.

Subverted unexpectedly with Emerald's debut in Pokémon Adventures. His croissant-shaped hairdo is revealed in a flashback to be manufactured... his real hair reaches to his knees. Ruby was seen helping him gel it back into a crescent, raising the question of what the Pokémon world's hair gel manufacturers put in that stuff.

Magari Kazuma has the usual static-y spikes, but Nora's hair is styled to make his head resemble a dog's body, with inumimi bangs/sideburns and a long doggy-tail.

Kakashi got hit by two attacks that disintegrated his gloves, his vest, and his headband; yet his hair was still perfect!

Sasuke's hair, while not actually that ridiculous by the standards of this page, has gone memetic due to the way it spikes out at the back making it look remarkably like the rear end of a duck. His epilogue hairstyle doesn't have the spikes, but he's always going to be known as the 'duck butt'.

Then there's Jiraiya's long, flowing, spiky white hair, or Chouji's (part two) long, brown spiky hair? Which admittedly isn't all that amazing, until he uses his Human Boulder technique and uses his hair to turn himself in to a human hedgehog (Jiraiya also used a similar attack minus the rolling).

More typically, Kisame and Ao both sport the same Johnny Bravo-esque "hair all sticking up to a point above their forehead" do,

There's also Kidomaru, who has his hair tied back into what looks like the unholy offspring of an afro and a high tail, which only gets worse when he goes into Cursed Seal State 2.

Many characters in Steel Angel Kurumi have odd hair, but Mikhail's hair takes the cake◊. Note that it's not wind that makes strands just float out there; they stay that way inside, too, with absolutely nothing to move them.

Mahou Sensei Negima! has Ricardo, the Hot-Bloodedsenator of Megalomesembria who sports a hairstyle containing five curvy spikes that makes his head look kinda like a starfish.

Ken Akamatsu's comments alongside early drafts for Kazumi Asakura describe her hairstyle as inspired by a pineapple...

Also Quintum and Quatrum. Their sister Sextum has much more normal hair though.

Nodoka's hair is totally normal in her normal style, being down just to the bottom of her skull and then shaved underneath. Except, that is, for the fact that she possesses the magical ability to not only get a ponytail out of hair that short (which should be impossible to begin with) but to get a high ponytail at the top of her head which somehow manages to be longer than her hair is when it's down, reaching almost to her shoulders. In other words, her hair more than doubles in length when she puts it into a ponytail.

In SoltyRei the main character has hair that looks like a hollow four leaf clover. But she's a robot so maybe it makes sense.

Vash the Stampede from Trigun. In the anime his hair is one of the ways Meryl and Millie track him, and in the manga he earns the nickname "Spiky". For his early style, which points strait up, apparently without the aid of gel, and in spite of gunfights, dust and sand.

Takuma from Elf Princess Rane takes the cake, being a full parody of anime hair. It's sky blue, has two tendrils down the front (the one on his right is thick and goes down to his feet, ending in a curl, while the one on his left is straight, thin, and goes to around his belt), and is styled into an epic curled horn on his left. Said horn is so massive that he regularly has to prop it up with his hands.

The Pretty Cure franchise has given its heroines a few hairstyles that are weird even by Magical Girl standards. Cure Black and Cure White had pretty tame 'dos, but things have gotten more ridiculous with each new series. It started getting extreme with Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star, where both of the heroines had pony tails that stuck more or less straight up; possibly reached its peak when Yes! Pretty Cure 5 introduced a heroine with an odd (pink) variation on the odango hairstyle where instead of buns, she has rings, and another who has weird cones on either side of her head with corkscrew-like pigtails coming out of them; and calmed down a bit in Fresh Pretty Cure!, where the most bizarre hairstyle was an extremely long, lavender side ponytail that looked more like a giant drill than anything. It came roaring back in Smile Pretty Cure!, where all five girls get wild hairdos. And let's not get into their Princess Form.

Fairly averted in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. While still different than what most people would see in real life, it's still fairly realistic. Blue hair is totally averted. A side effect is that this sometimes makes some of the characters (chiefly the girls) a bit hard to tell from one another.

While most of the characters from Detective Conan have fairly normal-looking hair, Ran Mouri (Rachel Moore) has a spike of it jutting out above her forehead.

In Soul Eater, the hair of the eponymous character is white and spiky and Black☆Star's is light blue and also spiky (but resembling a star), but Ox Ford spends much time fashioning his into two tall, pointed 'pillars' of hair and was otherwise bald until recently.

In Noein, not only is Karasu's hair spiky, it's somehow swept out sideways. What does he do, dunk his head into a toilet bowl full of hair gel?

Psy from Heroman has what could be best described as Spike Spiegel's hair on crack. It could be some sort of odd afro.

The female cast of Rumbling Hearts sports a variety of utterly bizarre hairstyles and colors, perhaps exmplified by the hair of major character Mitsuki, which is ocean blue and roughly the length of her ENTIRE BODY. Made even more jarring by the fact that the series bills itself as a "realistic" slice-of-life drama.

The hair color/style has nothing to do with how "realistic" the drama is. Also, except the improbable hair color for people who are suppose to be Japanese, their hair are pretty much normal or at least probable, even if you don't compare them to the crazy hair in other animes.

The hairstyles of the significant characters in Shiki range from totally normal to typical spikes to this◊ and this◊. The deaths are thus far less baffling than some of these hairdos.

Nia's hair in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is pastel blue and yellow in color, and the long hair running down her back resembles cotton candy in consistency.

It also acts somewhat like a flame at times, for instance, when wind blows, it will flow in the wind like a flickering flame, and if you pay attention small parts will fly off and disappear like small bits of flame.

Sena's hairstyle from Eyeshield 21 is a cross between Goku's, Astro Boy's, and Tsuna's, as well as being two tone (though he actually develops that later on, so he probably dyed his bangs). Evidently, the hairstyle's genetic, as his dad has the same thing, except with a receding hairline. Almost as if to lampshade his very anime-esque hair cut, when he gels in down it looks EXACTLY like Astro Boy's. Milder examples are Ikkyu's Vegeta-do, Kurita's chestnut spike, Mizumachi's blonde bedhead, Monta/Komosubi/Tomgano/Yukimitsu's spikes, and Sakuraba's hair antennae.

Hiruma's is a subversion. It looks like typical shonen hair, but in his flashback, it's revealed he has perfectly normal black hair. The spiky blond do is part of his image. The same with Kotaro, whose constantly bushing his hair to make it stay spiky.

Doi from Wandering Son has this though not to the extent of a lot of other examples, and it does resemble styles that a lot of teenage boys in Japan sport, but it still counts (especially in later appearances). He eventually gets it cut short though, because some bullies in high school force him to.

Bakugan has a few of these. Aside from the typical natural green hairs and gravity-defying spiky hair, one character even has green hair except for a small red forelock.

Kodomo no Jikan gives us Rin and Mimi, who must have never even heard of a haircut. Knee length pigtails (with eight pink balls) and a ponytail just as long, respectively.

Sunny from Toriko has long fully controllable hair that is white, pink, green and blue. Each color strand can sense/taste different things such as heat, cold, pressure and pain. It contains billions of micro-strands that are invisible to the naked eye. He's used it as a net, to walk on water, to deflect attacks and to climb mountains. It may be the epitome of anime hair.

Il Sole penetra le illusioni has this pretty heavily. Luna is most bizarre, having her hair grow in what appear to be strips, but none of the major characters have anything particularly normal. And this is a Magical Girl show, so they only get weirder when they transform.

The Kino's Journey anime adaptation gave Kino this. In the light novels she has a more plausible haircut.

Kazuki from Buso Renkin would have fairly standard Shonen Hair, if it weren't for the inexplicable M shape in there that looks like there's a misshapen pair of Triangle Shades sticking out of his head.

If that wasn't bad enough, take a look at Soya Muto◊ from the PS2 game.

Some characters in Puella Magi Madoka Magica have this going on. The protagonist, Madoka, is a relatively mild example. Her hair is tied up into twin tails that could probably exist in reality, but would require a lot of effort and comical amounts of hair products. It's also pink. While Mami's hair is a normal color, it's also styled in a much more elaborate way that's reminiscent of the ribbons she uses as a weapon. The sequel film, Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion, confirms that she curls her hair with magic.

Practically every character in Lyrical Nanoha has a seemingly normal hairstyle save that one side stands away from their head like a giant cowlick. And sometimes which side it is changes based on how they're standing.

Just one look at the page image is enough to see that pretty much everyone from Food Wars! has anime hair of some sort, from spiky red hair to locks which shoot off in odd directions.

Senku's hair sticks straight up (aside from the bangs) and appears to be roughly the same size as the entire rest of his head.

There's also a justified example in Kohaku, whose hair looks normal enough until she undoes her hair ties, at which point the fact that she lives in a stone-age society with no hair-care products, doubled with the fact that she's an Action Girl who doesn't really prioritize her appearance much, means that her hair sticks out in literally every direction.

Incandescence has a puffy, wavy, spiky bouffant that looks like Lisa Simpson on anime.

Depending on the artist, Quicksilver sometimes ends up with hair antennae that defy gravity.

In Teen Titans, Starfire's hair goes down past her waist and merges with the stream of energy left behind when she flies.

Same with Karolina from Runaways. In this case, though, the stream of energy is her hair (she's a pseudo Energy Being).

The lack of this in comics is almost as absurd as its prevalence in anime. Aliens species (even ones from a thousand years in the future) have hair cuts and colors that would be perfectly normal today.

Wolvie's crazy hair is parodied by Lobo. Lobo's hair seems to stand up like porcupine quills all on its own!

Lobo's crazy hair is parodied by Bloodwulf, who sticks his hand in an electrical socket to get it to stand up like that.

The Flash: Bart Allen — Impulse/Kid Flash II — is probably best known for his insanely huge◊ auburn hair and yellow eyes, so much so that they're an instant character marker. It wasn't part of his original design, but the first artist for his ongoing series exaggerated it to be such, and it's mostly stuck, though the length seems to be fluctuating wildly right now. Here's an analysis on how different artists (up to 2005) draw his hair. Walter West once quipped that it could serve as a cushion after throwing him into the air.

Liz in the comic strip Committed, and her daughter Tracy, both have a haircut that goes high above their heads, then curls forwards like a dolphin's fin (and Tracy also has a variant Ahoge that sticks out from the back of her head rather than the top.) The father, Joe, has hair that goes straight forwards instead of up, making him look like he's balancing a platter on his head. It's best demonstrated with an image.

Calvin gets literal Anime Hair in one comic when he uses Crisco to style his hair into two large spikes as a Shout-Out to Astro Boy.

In one strip, where he sleeps on his hair and wakes up with the front part matted down. He decides he likes it so much, he gels it to stay that way. Hobbes suggests he gets curlers for the back, but we don't see that.

Hobbes once told him that his "hat hair" didn't look too different from his normal hair.

One Sunday strip of FoxTrot shows Jason asking his mom, his brother, and his sister for (and presumably receiving) hair gel, to reveal that he was getting ready for a Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament by styling his hair like Yugi's. His father, who is balding, is annoyed that Jason didn't at least ask him if he had ant hair gel to borrow.

It was lampshaded before that, in the first episode no less. By the narrator.

No one knows why his hair does that. Is it static electricity? Is it hair gel? No, probably not.

Many other Calvinverse characters have this, like Dr. Brainstorm and his brother and rival Thunderstorm. The Lightning Man (who is Dr. Brainstorm's uncle) has Hershey's Kiss-shaped hair.

One character from Titan Legends has "Saiyan-hair" due to an odd change when he acquired his powers. Some characters mock this; he just tries to ignore it.

A Growing Affection: Saburo of the Grass has "light green hair" in "three, foot-long spikes" that are frequently described as looking like the trident. Ayameko of the Grass has a fairly normal style but her hair is blue on one side and slowly changes to purple on the other.

In The Legend of Total Drama Island, Chris gets a taste of this courtesy of Katie and Sadie, when he refuses once too often to let them be on the same team. They physically assault him and, among other indignities, they forcibly restyle the vain host's hair to an irregular, spiky mane, the likes of which is rarely seen outside of anime.

Human After All: Both Robotboy and Robotgirl have the same large, spiky hair in order to hide their robotic head nodes. It fits the animesque aesthetic of the source cartoon.

The crazy styles of Yugioh get lampshaded in the "Coming Right Back" story in Arc-Ved Protagonists, with Yuya stating that Yugi's hair style is the craziest he had encountered, while still acknowledging that his is growing naturally into a tomato shape.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! hair mentioned first on this page and seen in the page image is parodied repeatedly. Kimo always refers to himself in the third person as "my hair", and claims that it has super powers. At one point he refuses to let Joey into the tournament because his hair "isn't crazy enough", but fortunately Yugi's hair is "crazy enough for two people". Also, the Pharaoh needs to get his hair sharpened.

As of "Marik's Evil Council of Doom 3", Dartz's hair changes colour in every shot. When he enters the main series, it changes colour on screen.

Apparently, Syndrome from The Incredibles was a Super; his power was the ability to make that hair stand up. Either that, or he's secretly a Saiyan, since his hairstyle matches Vegeta's exactly.

MAD Magazine posited that he just stuck his finger in a lamp socket every morning.

Films — Live-Action

Rurouni Kenshin both plays this trope straight and averts it. Kenshin has his iconic red hair (which would be quite improbable in the period the film takes place in), while Sanosuke loses his anime spikes in favor of a more messy, disheveled look.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney somehow manages to take the already unusual and often excessive hair of the Ace Attorney series and actually make them happen in real life. Yes, this includes Phoenix's spiky hair, the judge's prodigious beard, and even Matt Engarde's Peek-a-Bangs.

Live-Action TV

One of the hosts of Ancient Aliens, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, is a rare live action and western example. His hair seems to progressively stick up more and more over the years.

LEGO employed full-force Anime Hair in most of the minifigures in the LEGO Exo-Force line, inevitable being that it was designed with mecha anime in mind. Interestingly, the accompanying animesque character art has everyone's hair looking (relatively) normal, starkly contrasting with the minifigures themselves.

Video Games

The Final Fantasy series is famous (though some would say infamous) for this.

In the original game, Cloud Strife has golden spikes that seem to shoot off in every direction. It is lampshaded often, and has earned him the nickname of 'Spiky' from his allies. His hairstyle is less extreme in future installments of the Compilation.

The villain Seymour has bright blue hair molded into shapes that could only possibly be achieved with a truckload of cement. Even better, we see him as a child in a flashback, and his hair (and really, his entire design) is exactly the same, just smaller. It's kind of adorable.

Wakka's gravity-defying peak shows him to be no slouch in the absurd haircut department either. Even underwater.

Marche in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a big strand of hair that curls straight up at the front of his head while having some strands of hair on the back of his head that flow out like a ponytail with a mind of its own.

Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia's hair stands at least eight inches high, with spike-like structures jutting about. Also, his hair bounces back and forth if you make him turn around on the overworld screens.

Tales of the Abyss is funny about this, though. Tear, Jade, and arguably Anise and Natalia have perfectly probable hairstyles and colours. Guy's is verging on anime-spiky. But still, that's almost everyone in the main party...except the protagonist himself who has hip-length fire-red hair (before he cuts it) with blonde tips and gravity-defying side-bang-spikes.

Kingdom Hearts, as a Final Fantasy / Disney crossover, has plenty of examples:

Several Final Fantasy mainstays appear, including Cloud, and their hair is as anime as ever.

Most members of Organization XIII have sufficient spikiness, especially Axel. It's often mixed with Elemental Hair - Larxene has bright blonde Hair Antennae, while Marluxia's hair is bright pink to go with his rose / cherry blossom motif.

Sora and Riku? Anime Hair all the way. This is even lampshaded when the party meets Tifa. (Heads-up, she's looking for Cloud.)

Tifa: Have any of you seen a guy with spiky hair? (Donald and Goofy stare at Sora, who tugs at one of his own spikes)Tifa:(chuckles) Spikier.

Ryuuta Ipongi from Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. Kai Doumeki from the game takes this one step further, as he even has a spiky beard.

Everyone in Ghost Trick has ridiculous hair. Sissel, Lynne, Beauty, and Emma stand out in particular. Seriously, how the hell does Beauty's hair even work?! Then again, the game is made and designed by the guy who created the Ace Attorney series.

One must wonder how much hair gel the Elite Beat Agents' Agent J uses to get his hair super-curly in front. It just seems to leap out like a tongue.

Guile may have been inspired by the man he's trying to avenge, Charlie Nash, whose hair seems to be modelled after a landing strip◊. You could land a small helicopter on it!

Disgaea generally has spiky hair across the board, though there are some notably odd styles, such as the giant cinnamon-roll pigtails that the archers sport, or Axel's purple lightning-shaped eyebrows.

Badass freakin' Overlord Zetta from Makai Kingdom may deserve special mention despite the short amount of time he spends in humanoid form. Artwork and his in-game sprites depict him with long, red, spiky hair, as per [1] general design. The more detailed cutscenes, however, show that he doesn't have hair so much as he wears an impeccably styled bonfire on his head, complete with bat-shaped licks of flame.

Laharl also deserves a nod, as his hair splits into two "antennae", which are equal to his total height.

In Golden Sun: The Broken Seal and sequels, the weirdest hairstyles and colors belong to Adepts with elemental powers. Non-Adept characters have more normal styles and colors.

Rival Schools has its fair share of funky hair as well. First there's Shoma, who has three huge spikes◊ of hair sticking out of his backward-facing baseball cap. Then there's Edge, who styles his long blonde hair into really tall spikes◊, and even uses it as a blunt weapon by headbutting (as if he uses Plaster of Paris for hairgel to give it such hardness). Taking the cake, however, is Yurika, who has excessively large Ojou Ringletsand cinnamon bun-esque curls at the top of her head (the latter might have served as inspiration for the previously mentioned Ron DeLite, considering Capcom owns both Ace Attorney and Rival Schools).

Akira Yuki and Jacky Bryant from the Virtua Fighter series have super spiky hair. The big polygons in the older games made Jacky's hair really spiky.

Goh Hinogami not only has super spiky hair, but it's blue.

The kid heroes of the Ape Escape series tend to have spiky hair of different degrees, with the most well-known being Spike's, for obviousreasons. Also, Specter is an example of anime fur, being a monkey and all. Another honorable mention is 3's gadget inventor Aki, whose hairstyle can only be described as "puffy".

Benimaru Nikaido from The King of Fighters can be described as having a "yellow push-pop" of hair. Though he can occasionally be seen with it hanging down in long, wavy tresses, so perhaps he employs static electricity to maintain his usual style.

The game Bayonetta is probably the exemplar of this trope. Not only is her hair ridiculously long, she uses it as her SOURCE OF CLOTHING, and controls it in such a way that it's a deadly weapon.

Ichiro Ohgami, from Sakura Wars, has hair that, unless cut, refuses to be anything but spiky. Fortunately, his hair isn't anywhere near as ridiculous as most of the examples of this trope.

Blood Elves from World of Warcraft. Since some of their hairstyles were copied and made available to humans and a couple other races, them too. But the Blood Elves will forever be the Children of the Anime Hair.

As will the female Gnomes, and they were there sooner!

One notable female draenei hairdo is so spiky, it can be hard to distinguish it from their actual horns.

Link's hair in The Legend of Zelda, although you would never tell from the sprites. In addition to the long sideburns from other games, his bangs also point straight forward.

Geo in Mega Man Star Force has a somewhat absurd crest with spikes that'd put your eye out. There's even a special gap in his helmet for it, even in Zerker form in 2. He gets different, but no less anime, hairstyles in the Saurian and Ninja forms.

For the fourth and fifth generations it's just easier to list the characters that do not boast some absurd-looking hair, though it's interesting to notice the fifth generation was the only one to feature relatively strange-haired player characters giving Hilbert a winged 80's haircut, Hilda a massive ponitail that sticks out of a truck driver cap, Nate a gigantic mass of who knows what squeezed into a visor and Rosa a couple of overly long pigtails topped with the largest pair of danishes ever seen since Star Wars.

Colress owns this trope. He has an Idiot Hair that loops around his head. And it's dyed blue. Think Internet Explorer logo with the colors reversed.

The Battle Chatelaines from Pokemon X and Y practically own this trope.

The end-all examples are the post-game antagonists of Pokemon Sword and Shield, Sordward and Shielbert, whose hair are shaped like the weapons the games get their names from. This means the sword one has a long, thick protrusion of hair going straight up. Multiple characters find their hairstyles to be completely ridiculous, including Piers, whose hair is a black-and-white thorny triple ponytail with bangs (also thorny and black-and-white) that cover up half his face and goes down to his chest.

Even Pokemon have this; Gardevoirs have "hair" that splits at the neck and goes over the shoulders like a pair of horns while the bangs rest on the face at a point and Gallades have their hair styled into a helmet-shape with a blue mohawk/crest with the same bangs as a Gardevoir.

One has twin-drill pigtails (that are bright purple), another has very long Miku-style pigtails, a third used to have her hair in three cobalt blue ponytails, and one has two-tone hair.

The "Rainbow Boys" sport different colors and hairstyles, many of which follow the "generic spiky-haired anime boy" cliché except for Ryuto, whose hair defies all logic and sense. It looks like the top of his head is on fire. He's really a Shout-Out to Ryuta Ippongi, Hotblooded Sideburns and all, and his hair used to be even more ridiculous.

Zack, the hero of Asdivine Hearts, has hair so spiky that he quickly earns the nickname of "Pineapple Head."

As he's based on the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, Haohmaru from Samurai Shodown sports a massive, huge, rambuctious hair. In each game, it gets wilder and wilder... bigger and bigger... until he reaches old age in the Distant FinaleWarriors Rage.

In Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, Zara's hair is styled into two points like princess hats, and those points have her hair spiraling to the top, where they taper off into two lengths of hair per point.

Phoenix Wright possesses what could be classified as "hedgehog hair", with spikes that protrude behind his head. His wannabe double, Furio Tigre, has similar spikes on his head. (The red skin kinda gives him away, too.) Lampshaded to hell and back several times over throughout the series.

Pearl has a big pretzel on the top of her head.

Ron DeLite has a pair of cinnamon buns on the side of his head that sproing outward when he's upset (which is often).

Detective Luke Atmey's hair looks like he shaved his head, broke a plate, took the biggest piece, spray-painted it bright yellow, and glued it to his head.

Redd White and April May both have unnatural hair colors—lavender and bright pink, respectively. Franziska von Karma has light blue hair, and Max Galactica has bright pink/purple hair.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney takes it farther, Daryan has a 'do that's oddly suggestive (he claims that it's a shark, but considering how it droops when he loses confidence, well...), Drew Misham's looks like half of its hair was frozen at an angle from its head, Wocky Kitaki has tricolored hair (an orange curl in the middle, two yellow spikes, and the rest is brown) and both Gavins' hair makes a G at the side while the lower part looks like a drill.

This trope also gets subverted in the case of Apollo's hairstyle: the directors state that his twin spikes aren't natural and he gels them very carefully every single morning. He even says at one point:

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney  Dual Destinies tones the amounts down significantly, though there's still Solomon Starbuck, whose hair is meant to look like a rocket, but more or less just looks like he's wearing a pointy red cone, and Athena Cykes, who gets a cowlick longer than her head pointing off to the side.

Though in Archer's case it's a side effect of using projection magic and white hair isn't unnatural to begin with.

Note that Lancer has a blackish blue hair, a hair color that is mistaken by many people to be blue but was meant to be black. Type Moon uses this often, examples include Ciel, Sakura, and Rin (though hers is mistaken to be green), all of which are said to be black by Word of God. Rider was never human so she has a excuse.

Gilgamesh's hair is especially notable for its behavior. When he's in civvies, it lies flat; when he changes into armor, it usually becomes upswept like a Super Saiyan's. Since he doesn't seem to be transforming anything except his clothes, there's no apparent reason for this change.

Reconstructed in Katawa Shoujo. Misha's pink princess curls, which are seen by everybody else as extremely unusual and are frequently pointed out, turn out to not be her natural hairstyle at all, but one she deliberately started wearing in order to shock and annoy her crush, Shizune, in a sort of passive-aggressive retaliation for rejecting her homosexual advances. She cuts it off later down Shizune's route, and in the end you get to a see a flashback of her from a year ago with completely unremarkable, brown, straight hair.

Penny Arcade's main characters have very zero-G hair, but Gabe once had it styled to maximum spikiness.

Megatokyo: Largo's hair. As pointed out in one of the books, Solid Snake has a mullet, and Largo's hair seems to be as long in the opposite direction. Shirt Guy Dom comes in to point out that this is usually referred to as 'disdain for gravity.'

Casey and Andy. Casey's hair has this spike that sticks forward like a narwhal. At one point, the artist decided to revert to the really pointy former hairstyle, and had Casey invent a machine to make his hair pointier.

Homestuck: John's hair has been described as Bed Hair 2: BedHarder. His Troll counterpart, Karkat takes that style Up to Eleven with some impressive Shonen Hair. Yet both of their hair styles are downright tame in comparasion to Gamzee, whose hair easily makes up a third of his body and bends and sticks in impossible ways. Dave and Dirk, on the other hand, both have hairstyles that look like birds.

Although Homestuck only uses the style part of this trope, not the colour. All human characters have black or blond hair, and all trolls have black hair. The exception is Eridan, who has a tuft of purple hair.

There are some rather odd hairstyles, although largely confined to the supporting cast, apart from Grace's enormous Hair Antennae. Noah has really long hair with Peek-a-Bangs and a ponytail that doesn't look entirely attached to his main hairdo, Vlad's hair has weird bits that stick up at the back despite having Rapunzel Hair (also bicolored hair; it's blond with black tips), Damien had a weird mullet-thing, Hedge's hair is basically a bunch of hedgehog spikes... the list goes on.

When Nanase gets turned into a man, she gets a bizarre hairstyle that Tedd definitely didn't do on purpose. Especially odd since her hair while female was perfectly mundane.

Nanase: Hey, Tedd? I've been meaning to ask you something... Tedd: I'm sorry, Nanase, but I have no idea why your male form has cockatoo hair! Nanase: What!? That's not what I was wondering about! Tedd: Well, you should. It's downright bizarre.

The Noordegraaf Files features Akila, a Nature Spirit who has blue spiked hair that's as tall has her head. Davis', Katrina's and Theo's hairstyles could also count, to a lesser degree.

Synodic Reboot: Most characters tend to have pointy, wavy hairstyles. Further accentuated as "anime" by the adlets' hair dye.

Tragically deconstructed Lookism: While his now-blind mother thinks that he disappeared, Johan secretly visits her barber shop once a month using a false identity. While her lack of sight doesn't cause her to injure her very few costumers, the results are lackluster.

Orrick in Undead Friend has your standard insane anime hairstyle that sometimes get commented on, but his personality doesn't really fit into the Shonen Hair trope.

Sock from Welcome to Hell has his hair at about a 90 degree angle from his head when he removes his hat.

Marge Simpson is technically eight-and-a-half feet tall with that blue beehive of hers.

There's also Bart and Lisa's "hair". In one episode, we discover that Marge cuts Lisa's and Bart's hair using templates (they look like spray paint stencils). Another episode has them realize that they functionally have no hair lines and thus can't tell the difference between their hair and their head.

Lisa: Yeah, um. The templates had a great run, but we want our hair to look like people hair.

Sideshow Bob has an afro shaped like a palm tree. It's kind of interesting how he may have inherited his hairstyle from his mother, Dame Judith Underdunk, which he later passes on to his son Gino.

The Real Ghostbusters. Egon Spengler. Presumably it is s pompadour, but it is drawn like some sort of curl... tube... thing.

Robin in the animated Teen Titans is given spiky, upright hair (which according to one waking-up sequence requres half a jar of gel). And let's not even get into Jinx's◊ hair. Considering in the source comics Jinx is bald, it might be fair pickens.

Futurama's Fry has what is described as "horn hair". Although he can slick it down when he wants to, according to the episode with Eighties Guy.

In Code Lyoko, Odd Della Robbia has spiky blond hair with a purple spot in front. The prequel episode implies that it isn't naturally spiky (at least in the real world), but that he uses gel to keep it that way, inspired by his Lyoko avatar. But it seems like the purple spot is natural, since it doesn't fade when he takes a shower, goes swimming, or, in one episode, is almost drowned by XANA.

Dib's hair is like a scythe blade, pointing back over his head. Possibly hereditary, since his dad has a similar hairstyle, except it's shaped more like a lightning bolt. We do see in one montage into the future well, kinda that his hair continues to grow longer, with more "lightning jaggies" showing up as he gets older.

Hell, look at Gaz's hair style, which looks like the open mouth of a crocodile. Weird hair must run in the family.

The title character in Æon Flux, along with some minor characters. Subtly Lampshaded in one episode when Aeon accidentally gets her hair wet and it falls in her face. She has to comb it straight, indicating that she in fact makes an effort to make it look like that. At later points in the series she is again shown with straight hair.

When the Rowdyruff Boys first showed up to mess with The Powerpuff Girls, they had pretty normal hairstyles. But once Him resurrected them, in addition to removing their initial weakness, he made their hair grow out and spiked them up a bit. The girls' reaction upon seeing their new hairstyles, of course, is to laugh.

Brick: Stop laughing! What are you laughing at? Blossom:(mockingly) Oh no, look who's back with mean hair! Bubbles:(also mockingly) Oh, whatever shall we do? Buttercup:(the same) How can we defeat their scary new hairdos?

Pretty much everyone in Trollz has this, except for Simon, the Big Bad, and Jasper, who used to have an enormous afro. Then Amethyst cast a spell and removed his hair permanently.

Nearly every character in Storm Hawks has a spiky hairstyle of varying degrees, most notably the main human characters.

Brett and Yoko from Team Galaxy both possess wacky hair designs. In fact, in one episode, Yoko panics when her pigtails are cut off, resulting in a more modest hairdo.

Zack Freeman of The Day My Butt Went Psycho! has hair extends a ludicrous distance forward from his head. Lampshaded by Silus Stern, who occasionally refers to him as "the boy with weird hair".

Detentionaire's main character, the Korean-Canadian Lee Ping, has what appears to be a mullet with emo bangs, the top half of which is dyed bright red. His odd choice of hairstyle is constantly commented on, questioned, and mocked by other characters, though Lee himself doesn't see what the big deal is.

The Gems of Steven Universe tend to have this; Pearl's sticks up to a point, Garnet has a square afro (a hairstyle shared by Rubies), Peridot's hair is triangular, Yellow Diamond has a double pompadour, et cetera. It's Justified since they are aliens whose bodies are Hard Light projections, and humans tend to have less outlandish hair styles.

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White Diamond

White Diamond's hair is massive and spiky. Combined with her natural glow and it looks like a shining star.